Aging?

Aging = the process of growing old. How can a word so easily defined evoke so many complex reactions? Linda and I always knew that it was happening; however, marrying quite young, we carefully crafted an image of how old age would look. One thing was for certain: We would not be like those who had gone before us! Unconsciously, I suspect we envisioned ourselves as the Golden Sunset Couple shown in the picture accompanying this blog. I now realize we were living in a tension between illusion and reality. Thankfully, another component has wonderfully entered the equation – hope! Let me explain the revised process: 

Illusion

In 1977, married to the girl of my dreams with four precious children, recently assigned as pastor to a great church in Logansport, Indiana, and enrolled in graduate studies at Ball State University; my life could best be described as good and getting better. While traveling to classes in my new grey Pontiac with a burgundy vinyl roof, and listening to country music (Give me a break; I was young!), I was captivated by six lines from Charlie Rich’s latest hit song:

Once was a thought inside my head
Fore I’d reach thirty I’d be dead
Now somehow on and on I go-o-o
I keep on rolling with the flow

I ain’t ever growing o-o-old
If I keep on rolling with the flow…

Even though nothing else in the song remotely resembled my life, two things stood out: First, I was reminded of the hopelessness I had felt as a teenager before coming back to my boyhood belief in Christ. Secondly, I wanted my life, as I now knew it, to continue forever.

Even though Linda and I had a common illusion regarding aging, she never shared a defining moment with me; however, knowing her taste in music, I am certain it would not have been influenced by Rollin’ with the Flow! 

Reality

When I visit Linda, my routine usually involves telling her stories incorporating our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She almost always attentively listens, and occasionally there is a hint of awareness as a particular name is mentioned. I usually conclude by telling her the age of our living children, how long Jeffery has been with the Lord, and asking a question, “Do you know what that means?” After she responds, “No,” I animatedly tell her, “That means we are old!” This always delights her, as if she is hearing it for the first time. I usually take the opportunity to connect our age with eternity by adding that I don’t mind being old because it means we are closer to going home to be with the Lord. Interestingly, even though most memories of life on earth are gone, her understanding of Heaven is largely intact.

A question begs to be asked: In our lives, what motivated the move from illusion to reality? A simple truth from an old Streams in the Desert devotion says it all:

The fairest alpine flowers bloom in the wildest

and most rugged mountain passes, and the most

magnificent psalms arose from the most profound

agonies of the soul. May it continue to be!

For the past three years, Linda’s Primary Care Provider has skillfully balanced a need to control anxiety with the necessity of keeping her alert and enjoying a good quality of life. Recently, anxiety has increased and this week an increase in dosage was necessary. Once again, I have been made aware of God’s plan for a stronger part of the body of Christ to minister to a  suffering part.

Hope

Five months from our fifty-eighth anniversary, the tension between illusion and reality has been forever erased; however, that is not a bad thing. In fact, it is wonderful!

That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy (Romans 18 :18 -25 MSG).